Blueberries

Blueberries


Blueberries are a flowering plant which flowers is a bell shaped, white, pink or red and sometimes green. They grow in shrubs that vary in size from 10cm to 4 m in height, the smaller species are called lowbush blueberries and the larger species are called highbush blueberries. The fruit is called a berry and is 5-66 mm in diameter with a flared crown at the end they start as a pale green color and then they turn a reddish-purple color and finally a dark purple when ripe. They have a sweet taste when mature; the blueberry season is from May to October peaking in July.

Although blueberries are native to North America but now they are grown in Australia, New Zealand, and South American countries and can be air shipped as fresh produce all around the world. The blueberry is one of the few human foods that are naturally colored blue.

In 2005 the blueberry was categorized as a functional food called superfruits having a favorable combination of nutrient richness, antioxidant strength and versatility for manufacturing novel consumer products.

Cultivation

Blueberries are either cultivated or wild. The wild blueberries are smaller and much more expensive then the cultivated ones. They are also prized for their intense flavor and color. Low bush species are fire-tolerant and blueberry production often increases following a forest fire as the plants regenerate rapidly and benefit from removal of competing vegetation.
The Starkleberry is a common wild species on sandy soil in the Southeastern US, its fruit is important to the wildlife and the flowers are important to the beekeepers.

Growing Areas

Maine produces about 25% of all of the blueberries for North America making it the largest producer in the world. Maine’s 60, 000 acres were spread from native plants that occur naturally in the under storey of its coastal forest. The Maine crop requires about 50,000 beehives to pollinate the crops with most of the beehives being trucked in from other states. Quebec and Nova Scotia are also major producers of wild blueberries. The town of Oxford in Nova Scotia is known as the Wild Blueberry capital of Canada.

Blueberries were first introduced to Australia in the 1950s, but the effort was unsuccessful. "In the early 1970's David Jones from the Victorian Department of Agriculture imported seed from the U.S. and a selection trial was started. This work was continued by Ridley Bell" who imported more American varieties. In the mid-1970s the Australian Blueberry Growers Association (ABGA) was formed.

Blueberries especially the wild ones contain antioxidant pigments and other phytochemicals (promotes the function of the immune system) which may have a role in reducing some cancer. In 2004 the International Conference of Longvity has reported that eating blueberries and cranberries may have alleviated the cognitive decline in Alzehimer’s and other conditions of aging. Also feeding blueberries to animals lower stroke damage. The also have been known in helping prevent uninary tract infections
140 grams of fresh blueberries contain about 3g of fiber and also they are high in manganses and well as vitamin K.